In the past, a portable terminal such as a cellular phone is known that obtains character information about a web page disclosed in a portal site, performs voice synthesizing processing of the obtained character information, and outputs the voice. For example, Patent Literature 1 discloses an information providing system and a portable terminal for receiving text content distributed from an information distribution server and converting the text content into voice data.
More specifically, the information providing system and the portable terminal of Patent Literature 1 allow a user to select whether to play voice or display text in accordance with the type of the contents received from an information distribution site. When the user selects to play voice, the portable terminal of the Patent Literature 1 downloads desired text content, converts the content into voice, and plays voice of the selected content.
The information providing system and portable terminal of Patent Literature 1 also allows a user to select whether to output voice of only the headline of the text content or to output voice of the main text of the text content.
Therefore, the portable terminal of Patent Literature 1 downloads any one of the headline or the main text selected by the user from the two options, converts the any one of the headline or the main text into voice, and plays the voice.